Currently, touch-based input methods, such as touchscreen keyboards typically used on touchscreen devices, are widely utilized. These virtual keyboards are usually oriented in accordance with a “QWERTY” keyboard layout (or its variations) consisting of dozens of small virtual keys spread usually uniformly across a particular displayed keyboard.
These virtual keyboard implementations however often provide only limited typing comfort. For example, when holding a device displaying such a keyboard, some keys typically reside out of reach of a user's fingers, and therefore a user is forced to frequently adjust handling orientations of the device in order to utilize the keyboard, which results in reduced typing speeds. Moreover, a user may unintentionally drop the device displaying the virtual keyboard while adjusting handling orientation of the device, which may result in significant damage and/or loss of functionality of the device.
Furthermore, because virtual keys of conventional virtual keyboards are often small in size (such as to fit each of the 26 letters of the English alphabet on different keys) relative to the average human thumb (which is often used to select virtual keys), typing accuracy is often compromised on conventional virtual keyboards.